Sega Saturn disc resurfacing?

[The Adventurer]

Okay, so I found a disc only copy of Panzer Dragoon II Zwei at the flea market today, it was a bit scratched but I got it for $4 and took a chance. My luck with scratched Sega discs being what it is, of course the game doesn't work when I get it home to test it (seriously, I've picked up 2 or 3 loose Dreamcast and Saturn discs in the last few months in what I would conciser 'fair' condition. And none of them have worked. Discs in similar condition on the PS1 and PS2 work like champs. I really don't get it. Anyway....)

The scratches all seem largely superficial, except for one really glaring flaw. That is less a scratch, and more dent. From the top of the disc down. Which, you'd think would be the death kneel, but here's the thing. Its in that strip of disc the Saturn has where it has the words 'Sega' and 'Trademark' written, that the system needs to read in order to work. I assume this is a copy protection strip of some kind. Well, the dent is in that strip only (I'll try to post an image of this latter.), and its not near the words. But the superficial scratches seem to be obstructing the words.

I've actually managed to get the disc to a the title screen once (usually it can't read the disc and dumps me to the CD music playback screen, which seems to the the default for Saturn Disc read errors)

So I have some hope I might actually be able to salvage this game. But I heard that you can't refurbish Saturn discs, that it'll kill the disc completely. Is this true? Is there any way to buff these scratches out safely? Any advice would be very appreciated.

[wiggyx]

Nope, not true at all. Same myth exists with Wii games.

[Alpha2099]

There are all kinds of products out there that clean up scratched discs. Get one of those and you'll be fine.

[PreZZ]

I resurfaced my copies of Guardian Heroes and Shining Force 3, they were both heavily scratched and they now work perfectly. I asked the guy at the store beforehand and he told me he never had any problem resurfacing saturn games. I wouldnt do it more than once though...

[wiggyx]

There are all kinds of products out there that clean up scratched discs. Get one of those and you'll be fine.

I would recommend against the DIY resurfacing stuff and have it done professionally.

[Mr Mort]

I bought a copy of Thunder Force Gold Pack 1 off Ebay, and when I got it, the disc looked flawless except for one miniscule scratch that was less than half a centimeter long. Turns out, when I try to load one particular stage in TF3, the music skips & cuts out, and the Saturn simply resets to the dashboard a minute or two later.

I took the disc to get resurfaced and had it done twice to no avail. Eh, you win some, you lose some. Now I need to track down another copy. :(

[Polygon]

Nope, not true at all. Same myth exists with Wii games.

I've heard that with GameCube games as well.


I would recommend against the DIY resurfacing stuff and have it done professionally.

I agree completely. I was recently at a local retro game store and I bought The Need for Speed on PS1. It was pretty scratched up, but that had a pretty expensive resurfacing machine and they offer free resurfacing on any game they sell at any time. It took about 1o minutes but the thing looked new when it was done and works perfectly. They also offer to resurface any game for $5. The DIY stuff is crap. Have it done professionally.

[otaku]

when I was playing/collecting for the saturn I had a few discs that needed cleaning up and I had a local video store with a pro machine for resurfacing they did the job for $2 perfect and hastle free when compared to some junk $20 machine you get at an electronics store

[Gameguy]

It depends on the skill of the store. There's a game store close by me that has a professional Azuradisc resurfacer and charges $5 per disc, only they don't know how to use it right. I got a music CD resurfaced and it's full of swirl marks, it works but that's how well they do all their discs. I never went back for any more resurfacing.